Two of the Kennedy cousins spoke out about their battles with addiction, saying that their family’s history with substance abuse contributed significantly to their own health problems.

Christopher Kennedy Lawford said that he began drinking and using drugs when he was only 12-years-old and he ‘had desire to stop, I had all the resources to stop, and it was difficult for me’.

He is now 26-years sober and has written a book about battling addictions, but the fight is much more fresh for his cousin, former Congressman Patrick Kennedy.

SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEOS

Family troubles: Christopher Kennedy Lawford (left) and his cousin former Congressman Patrick Kennedy (right) appeared on the Today Show to talk about their respective battles with substance abuse

Knowledge: Christopher, who is the son of JFK's sister Patricia, said that he wrote about about addiction because he learned a great deal from his own experiences, having started drinking at age 12

Patrick, who is the son of the late Senator Ted Kennedy, will be two years sober next month meaning that his last relapse was right around the time that he finished his term as the Representative for Rhode Island.

‘It took me leaving my public life to finally get into long-term sobriety. Before, it was stopping and starting, stopping and starting. That's the case for most people with these illnesses,’ he said during their joint appearance on the Today Show Monday morning.

RELATED ARTICLES

Share this article

Share

The cousins were speaking about their personal health issues while promoting the book that Christopher wrote about various expert advice on treating addiction.

‘People ask me where my addiction came from and I say I was the prodigy of an addictive perfect storm. I have the genetics. Alcoholism didn't run in my family, it galloped,’ Christopher said in interview with Huffington Post Live.

Political family: Patrick's father the late Senator Ted Kennedy (right, seen with his brothers former President John F Kennedy at the left and former Senator Robert in the middle) was said to be a heavy drinker

Christopher is the son of Patricia
Kennedy, whose brothers included former President John F. Kennedy and
Senators Robert and Edward Kennedy.

A FAMILY HISTORY OF ADDICTION

Patrick’s
deceased father Ted Kennedywas known to be a heavy drinker and was involved in a fatal
car accident in Chappaquidick Island where alcohol is thought to have
been a factor. His mother Joan, who later divorced Ted, has openly
admitted she is an alcoholic.

Bobby Kennedy’s 11 children have all had public issues with drugs. RFK
Jr. was arrested for heroin possession in 1983, and more recently his
estranged wife Mary killed herself amid an on-going battle with
depression and addiction.

His younger brother David died of a drug overdose in 1984 while on vacation in Palm Beach.

Their
sister Kerry, who used to be married to current-New York governor
Andrew Cuomo, was in a car accident earlier this year after allegedly
becoming disoriented while on the sleeping pill Ambien.

Jean Kennedy’s son William Kennedy Smith was accused of drunkenly raping a woman after returning home from a bar.

While he did not go into specifics about the types of drugs he used, his book includes references to alcohol, pills and heroin.

He
said that in addition to genetics, the general culture of the time and
his family dynamics also contributed to his substance abuse.

‘When
I began my drug use at the age of 12 (in 1969) it was an entirely
different culture. You know back then it was just after the summer of
love it was all about experimentation we didn't know what we know today
and we accepted behavior that we wouldn't accept today,’ he told
Huffington Post Live.

‘We
know today that an adolescent who suffers great trauma in their
adolescence who has genetic frontloading for addiction is much more 40
per cent more likely to develop this later in life. I had huge trauma as
a kid, both my uncles were assassinated, I come from a divorce.

‘There's a lot of stuff that I didn’t know what was going on but I was looking for medication.’

He said that after having to try to beat the disease a number of times, he became suicidal and just wanted to give up.

‘I was going to kill myself but I didn't really want to kill myself so I did the next thing which was basically I surrendered. I didn't really realize I was doing that at the time but I did the one person in the world I didn't want to call, a relative of mine who I had competed with my whole life, and I said tell me what to do and he told me what to do,’ he said without naming which relative provided relief.

Working on it: Patrick Kennedy said that he has been sober for nearly two years, and that it helped having resigned from his post in Congress because now he can focus on his personal life

‘If he had said "Crawl on your belly over broken glass to New York" I would have done it. So that's the level of surrender that's necessary.’

Christopher and Patrick are far from the only Kennedys who have a history of drug problems.

Patrick’s father Ted was known to be a heavy drinker and was involved in a fatal car accident in Chappaquidick Island where alcohol is thought to have been a factor. His mother Joan, who later divorced Ted, has openly admitted she is an alcoholic.

Problems: RFK Jr, seen here with his late ex-wife Mary, was arrested for heroin possession in 1983, and Mary had issues with drugs and alcohol before her suicide in 2012

Fatal: David (center) Kennedy, another son of Bobby's, died in a drug overdose at the age of 28 in 1984

Latest: Kerry Kennedy, one of Robert's daughters seen here with her mother Ethel, was involved in a car accident in 2012 and she told police that she had just taken the prescription sleeping pill Ambien

Among the other cousins, three of Bobby Kennedy’s 11 children have all had public issues with drugs.

RFK Jr. was arrested for heroin possession in 1983, and more recently his estranged wife Mary killed herself amid an on-going battle with depression and addiction.

His younger brother David died of a drug overdose in 1984 while on vacation in Palm Beach.

Their sister Kerry, who used to be married to current-New York governor Andrew Cuomo, was in a car accident earlier this year after allegedly becoming disoriented while on the sleeping pill Ambien.

Jean Kennedy’s son William Kennedy Smith was accused of drunkenly raping a woman after returning home from a bar.

Trifecta: Christopher said that his genetics, the childhood traumas of his uncle's assassinations and parent's divorce, and the culture of drug use at the time all contributed to his substance abuse battle

Patrick and Christopher say that their family’s struggles with curbing addiction- even though they are wealthy enough to afford treatment- shows that the disease cannot be won or lost because of money.

‘One of the things that Chris and I have had access to is good treatment but most Americans are trying to fly in the night in terms of what's understanding out there and what is good for them,’ Christopher said on the Today Show.

‘I come from a family where when we have a hardship or we have a challenge we meet it and we try to make lemonade out of lemons and that's sort of what I did here. The need was so profound and I come from a family that the ethic of public service is really strong,’ he explained to Huffington Post Live as the rationale for his new book.

‘My Uncle Teddy would be really mad at me if I turned my back on this.’